Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Breath of the Wild Sequel Announced

screenshot of the rising Hyrule Castle from the Breath of the Wild sequel trailer

Okay, let's get the big stuff out of the way, before we focus on Link's Awakening once more... As an impressive finish to their E3 2019 presentation Nintendo announced that they are working on the sequel to Breath of the Wild. Well, this isn't really a big surprise, since Aonuma already said as much in Creating a Champion / Master Works one and half years ago. So, they've been working on this ever since they've finished the DLC for Breath of the Wild, maybe even earlier.

It also shouldn't come as a surprise in general. Breath of the Wild has been a huge success, the most successful Zelda game so far, where it's only natural that Nintendo wants to drive on this success by making a sequel in the same style right away. This is common for all the handheld Zelda games, but the only 3D Zelda game so far that got the same treatment was Ocarina of Time, where they had planned expansions for the Nintendo 64 DD and ultimately one of them turned into its own game with Majora's Mask.

So, you can't even blame Zelda fans, if they draw parallels between this and the beloved Nintendo 64 sequel. Both are using the same engine to give us something new. And both seem to follow a much darker tone, at least from what we've seen in the trailer so far, where this let's us dive from the technological approach of Breath of the Wild into something much more... mythical.

However, the thought of this becoming another Majora's Mask is only masking the worries that this trailer brings. When watching this trailer some might even think that this was supposed to announce new DLC for Breath of the Wild and you can't really blame them either, because it heavily looked like an expansion. Of course Nintendo won't be doing more DLC, because fans would be asking for it on Wii U as well and they certainly don't want to maintain the Wii U version of Breath of the Wild any longer. The game could have gotten many more content updates, if it weren't for that... But it still could mean that the development of this new game started originally as another expansion, much like Majora's Mask did.


The Return of Ganondorf? The Absence of Technology?


Overall the trailer leaves you really puzzled with what's going on. We see a mummified corpse that's supposedly Ganondorf under Hyrule, held down by some divine spirit or something similar. And we see Ganon's malice spreading.

What we don't see is any Sheikah technology. The shot of Hyrule Castle doesn't show the pylons around it, which held the Guardians, there also don't seem to be any Sheikah Shrines or Sheikah Towers visible and Vah Rudania is not around Death Mountain... Also, Link is always cut off in a way so that you can't see whether he is carrying the Sheikah Slate or not, but it doesn't seem like it.

This makes it actually difficult to place this trailer. You would think that this takes place after the events of Breath of the Wild, but then the absence of all things Sheikah technology would have to be explained. It might even be what causes Link and Zelda to explore these underground ruins in the first place. Maybe the last scene in the trailer, where Hyrule Castle rises up, chronologically happens before all the other events.

It's also thinkable that this is in fact something that takes place before the events of Breath of the Wild and we just witnessed the awakening of Calamity Ganon from a new perspective, but this also doesn't fit what we've seen so far and Hyrule probably would look quite different, with various housings visible on Hyrule Field and such. Also, there would be no real point in telling this story now, after Calamity Ganon has been defeated...

In any case, this scene might probably be a memory or something similar – something you discover along the way. If it's not and this is actually supposed to be the beginning of the game, we would loose an aspect that made Breath of the Wild so good: dropping you into a world without knowing what's going on. And this leads us right to the next point...


The World?


The trailer overall seems to have the purpose of shocking people with its imagery, similar to the original reveal of Breath of the Wild, where a Guardian came out of nowhere, chasing you. It raised many exciting questions at the time, much like this new trailer has now. However, there is one big difference: the first teaser of Breath of the Wild started by showing us the massive and exciting game world. The first look trailer for the sequel does not.

In fact this gives more the impression of an underground expansion than anything else, where you explore Hyrule's vast underground dungeons in the same Hyrule as before. That's certainly something that some fans wanted, but exploring a massive, seamless overworld is what made Breath of the Wild so good in the first place. If they are simply re-using the same overworld and adding to it, then the sequel would be in a very bad spot already.

It could be a situation similar to A Link Between Worlds, where the old overworld is there, but has been altered in many ways, while there is also a new world to explore: either the underground or a Dark World / Lorule. The latter would have to be very different, however, because having three different versions of the same gigantic overworld would be too much. And as good as the world of Breath of the Wild has been, the sequel first and foremost needs an entirely new world. If you have invested hundreds of hours into the first game, then a sequel that takes place in the same world seems rather exhausting than exiting...

Hopefully, Nintendo will clarify on this soon. Update: Aonuma did confirm that this will take place in the previous Hyrule in an interview with GameInformer. He also confirmed that development started as DLC in an interview with Kotaku.

This really could mean that they most likely will focus on expanding Hyrule's underground world, while they do something different for the overworld.


Link and Zelda? Multiplayer?


A more promising aspect of the trailer is that we see Link and Zelda adventuring together. That's a vision that the end of Breath of the Wild gave us and something that will hopefully now will be delivered. It would be nice, if we could actually play as Zelda next to Link in this game.

(Her new hair style might even have the purpose that it was easier to animate her and put her many different outfits during the game, even though her old hairstyle probably looked a lot better.)

screenshot of Zelda riding an elephant through a dark cave

If there really is a two world mechanic, Zelda could be playable in the familiar Hyrule, while Link explores the underground or the Dark World or whatever there is, where you can switch between the characters at any time to make both worlds interact with each other... However, this would put the two characters apart, which wouldn't be as interesting.

This could also lead into a two player coop experience, where one plays as Link and the other as Zelda, either locally or online. Aonuma has stated that he wanted to re-explore the multiplayer aspect of Zelda with what they've learned from Breath of the Wild, where it's entirely possible that they might add multiplayer to a 3D Zelda game for the first time (source).

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